Comments for Thinking Pacifism https://thinkingpacifism.net
Reflections on peace and faith
Mon, 07 Jan 2019 20:37:53 +0000
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Comment on A Civil War Question: Can One Hate Both Slavery and War Equally? by Kurt Goering https://thinkingpacifism.net/2019/01/07/a-civil-war-question-can-one-hate-both-slavery-and-war-equally/#comment-194397
Mon, 07 Jan 2019 20:37:53 +0000http://thinkingpacifism.net/?p=8222#comment-194397Very interesting hypothesis, Ted! I was just discussing with my pastor his view (I believe I have it correctly) that governments have a right, and sometimes even an obligation, to engage in war, but that Anabaptist Mennonite followers of Jesus cannot participate in war, and about the extent to which Anabaptist Mennonite followers of Jesus can engage in the political/governmental arena. I look forward to your further thoughts on your hypothesis and these issues.
Kurt
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Comment on A Civil War Question: Can One Hate Both Slavery and War Equally? by Ted Grimsrud https://thinkingpacifism.net/2019/01/07/a-civil-war-question-can-one-hate-both-slavery-and-war-equally/#comment-194393
Mon, 07 Jan 2019 15:18:26 +0000http://thinkingpacifism.net/?p=8222#comment-194393Thanks for the question, Craig. Right now, I just mean to offer this idea as a hypothesis. In my first Civil War post in June, I say more about where the hypothesis comes from: https://thinkingpacifism.net/2018/06/25/wondering-about-the-american-civil-war/

The idea is simply that the ending of Reconstruction in 1877 signaled the success of the effort of white supremacists to role back pretty much everything that the Civil War and its aftermath had accomplished in gaining recognition of the full humanity of those who had been enslaved. As the Jim Crow era unfolded, blacks in the South were pushed back into a very slavery-like existence.

I have an extensive reading list I plan to work though to help me test this hypothesis.

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Comment on A Civil War Question: Can One Hate Both Slavery and War Equally? by Craig https://thinkingpacifism.net/2019/01/07/a-civil-war-question-can-one-hate-both-slavery-and-war-equally/#comment-194392
Mon, 07 Jan 2019 15:09:38 +0000http://thinkingpacifism.net/?p=8222#comment-194392Sorry if I missed it, but in what ways did slavery evolve (as opposed to disintegrating) and in what ways was this new evolution (or new evolutions) worse?
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Comment on Turning against evangelicalism: A pastor’s story by Donald https://thinkingpacifism.net/2019/01/02/turning-against-evangelicalism-a-pastors-story/#comment-194364
Fri, 04 Jan 2019 14:20:41 +0000http://thinkingpacifism.net/?p=8212#comment-194364Your reflections are always helpful Ted, your tone is indeed as David said always kind when you disagree, your writings are keeping my faith, weak as it is, alive, thank you
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Comment on Turning against evangelicalism: A pastor’s story by unkleE https://thinkingpacifism.net/2019/01/02/turning-against-evangelicalism-a-pastors-story/#comment-194348
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 21:12:25 +0000http://thinkingpacifism.net/?p=8212#comment-194348I appreciated your analysis here, both the positive and the negative. I had the same thought as you, that he may have had some of the same problems no matter what system and worldview he espoused. It would be interesting to know if exiting evangelicalism has led to healing, and where he has ended up.

I am Australian, and here evangelicalism isn’t as toxic as in the US – it isn’t so patriotic (though perhaps becoming a little more so), it is less strident about inerrancy, and not necessarily creationist. But it still tends to be prescriptive rather than freeing, controlling and fearful.

I feel concerned that evangelicals don’t actually know the Jesus of history because they don’t read historians much, and so the Jesus they believe in is largely self-made. And I fear some progressives haven’t progressed as much away from that. The Jesus of the gospels is far more complex than the salvation figure of the evangelicals, and they seem to know nothing of the kingdom of God. Meanwhile the progressives seem to ignore some of the hard sayings of Jesus about judgment and his upending of the world order and just focus on love.

Like you, I think it is helpful to read about the journey people make out of evangelicalism and to try to understand better what God is doing. Thanks for this account.

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Comment on Turning against evangelicalism: A pastor’s story by David L. Myers https://thinkingpacifism.net/2019/01/02/turning-against-evangelicalism-a-pastors-story/#comment-194345
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 14:19:23 +0000http://thinkingpacifism.net/?p=8212#comment-194345Ted, the relationship between psychological injuries and theological evolution (and devolution) is as fascinating as it is complicated. I have sometimes wondered if your relatively healthy family life has made it possible for you to be kind to, and not reactive against, Evangelicals. I’m looking forward to reading your theological memoir. Keep that 2019 resolution!
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Comment on The Centrality of God’s Love: A Response to Greg Boyd’s Cross Vision (III—An Alternative) by Howard Pepper https://thinkingpacifism.net/2018/11/08/the-centrality-of-gods-love-a-response-to-greg-boyds-cross-vision-iii-an-alternative/#comment-193818
Sun, 25 Nov 2018 22:06:17 +0000http://thinkingpacifism.net/?p=8187#comment-193818Interesting points, Ted. Rather than go into them, I’ll say I appreciate the peace emphasis and the “method” of reading in light of the Big Story. However, some understanding of how/why the “counter narratives” got there is also important. Of course, much has been explored about this via “higher criticism” for over two centuries.

Representative pieces of this I’d read over recent decades (and a little going back to the 70s in my conservative seminary days, during which I discounted it entirely). Maybe because my main focus in the 90s and since was the NT, I’d not even perused, let alone read the classic I’ll now recommend: “Who Wrote the Bible?” by Richard Elliot Friedman (1987), which deals just with Hebrew Scripture “The Bible”). In summary, this book is highly valuable (even if Friedman’s informed speculations are not all correct) because he is both broad and general AND quite specific… dates, authors, processes, etc. And a key takeaway is this: Hebrew Scripture (as similarly the Greek NT) is more a compiled/edited and re-edited library than it is a “book”. The natural human element and its effects enter repeatedly, not just once, here and there, due to a single human’s perspective or error. If a serious Bible and theology student such as me missed this great book for so many years, I figure others probably have, too.

“I would say that we know that God is nonviolent because we confess that Jesus shows us what God is like and Jesus’s life and teaching were thoroughly and consistently nonviolent. The cross is the consequence of that life, not itself actually a core revelatory moment.”

I might gently push back on you here by offering that the cross is a revelatory moment in that it demonstrates, if there were any remaining doubt, two things: (i) just what love really looks like (i.e. self-giving, other-centred, co-suffering, etc.), and (ii) that this is the kind of love God is – that he is without vengeance/retribution to the extent that, to borrow from Brian Zahnd, he would rather die than kill his enemies.

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Comment on The Centrality of God’s Love: A Response to Greg Boyd’s Cross Vision (III—An Alternative) by Donald https://thinkingpacifism.net/2018/11/08/the-centrality-of-gods-love-a-response-to-greg-boyds-cross-vision-iii-an-alternative/#comment-193476
Sun, 18 Nov 2018 08:50:05 +0000http://thinkingpacifism.net/?p=8187#comment-193476Hi Ted
Been helped by your writing for several years now, gradually helping me see a different picture of who God is, different from my conservative, Calvinist upbringing. I thank you for that. The process is ongoing!

My thinking needs to be bible based and I am struggling to put together your approach which says I think the bible authors at times simply imposed there own views on God, in terms of violence and judgement. Another approach I am finding very helpful is the narrative historical approach of Andrews Perriman who reads bible as it is yet understands it as referring to history, it accepts God’s judgement and violence in sense of historical judgements. As I write I realise my grasp of his approach is not so clear.

Anyway my simple question is do you have any thoughts on how this approach fits, do you see it as helpful or can you see any problems with it.

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Comment on The Centrality of God’s Love: A Response to Greg Boyd’s Cross Vision (III—An Alternative) by Mike https://thinkingpacifism.net/2018/11/08/the-centrality-of-gods-love-a-response-to-greg-boyds-cross-vision-iii-an-alternative/#comment-193041
Fri, 09 Nov 2018 21:06:48 +0000http://thinkingpacifism.net/?p=8187#comment-193041Enjoyed this series and your responses Ted. Thanks. I agree infallible/authority/inspired views of the Bible has lead to more violence. I think we must more carefully define such terms for they speak to the very character of God.
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